Caltech News tagged with "grants_and_giving"http://www.caltech.edu/news/tag/grants_and_giving/rss.xml
enCaltech's Chen Building Breaks Groundhttp://www.caltech.edu/news/caltechs-chen-building-breaks-ground-80556
<div class="field field-name-field-subtitle field-type-text field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">The Tianqiao and Chrissy Chen Neuroscience Research Building breaks ground as a first round of funding to researchers is announced.</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-news-writer field-type-ds field-label-inline clearfix"><div class="field-label">News Writer:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Lori Dajose</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-images field-type-file field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><div class="ds-1col file file-image file-image-jpeg view-mode-full_grid_9 clearfix ">
<img src="http://s3-us-west-1.amazonaws.com/www-prod-storage.cloud.caltech.edu/styles/article_photo/s3/Chen_Inst_ResearchGrants_V2-SpotlightFeature-1000x300.jpg?itok=xC2cJSPU" alt="Detail of a rendering of a brain surface region from three-dimensional magnetic resonance images acquired from a healthy volunteer at the Caltech Brain Imaging Center." /><div class="field field-name-field-caption field-type-text field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Detail of a rendering of a brain surface region from three-dimensional magnetic resonance images acquired from a healthy volunteer at the Caltech Brain Imaging Center.</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-credit-sane-label field-type-ds field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Credit: Mike Tyszka / Caltech Brain Imaging Center</div></div></div></div></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><p>It has been one year since philanthropists Tianqiao Chen and Chrissy Luo announced a $115 million gift to launch a campuswide neuroscience initiative for interdisciplinary brain research. Today, December 5, Caltech breaks ground on the Tianqiao and Chrissy Chen Neuroscience Research Building at Caltech. The building will be located at the northwest corner of campus.</p><p>"This is a symbolic but important step towards creating a beautiful new space that will foster transformative advances in neuroscience research, through collaborations at the interface between different disciplines," says David Anderson, director of the <a href="https://neuroscience.caltech.edu">Tianqiao and Chrissy Chen Institute for Neuroscience</a>, Tianqiao and Chrissy Chen Institute for Neuroscience Leadership Chair, Seymour Benzer Professor of Biology, and Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator. "Such research is being further enabled by the half-million dollars in seed funding for new projects recently announced by the Chen Institute."</p><p>Recently, Caltech announced its first round of Chen Institute research grants. Thirteen projects led by 19 Caltech faculty received funding. Three of these projects are highlighted below.</p><h3>"Molecular Basis for the Antidepressant effects of Ketamine"—<strong>The T&amp;C Chen Center for Systems Neuroscience</strong></h3><p><em><a href="http://www.bbe.caltech.edu/content/henry-lester">Henry Lester</a>, professor of biology</em></p><p><em><a href="http://www.bbe.caltech.edu/content/matt-thomson">Matt Thomson</a>, </em><em>assistant professor of computational biology</em></p><p>In the last few years, ketamine has emerged as an effective drug for treating clinical depression and chronic pain. Despite its use, the molecular mechanism underlying these effects is still poorly understood.</p><p>"We theorize that ketamine increases the release of a certain neurotransmitter, called glutamate, which leads to increased synaptic connectivity in the brain and improved mood," says Lester. "To test this, we will take neurons from the hippocampus of a mouse and grow them in a petri dish—essentially creating a functioning little brain in the lab—and observe ketamine's effects."</p><p>In parallel, Thomson will be using large-scale gene expression profiling methods to examine ketamine's effects on individual cells within the neural cultures.</p><p>"To analyze the data, we will construct statistical models of the neural cell populations as they respond to the drug to determine how ketamine is acting on cellular pathways across many different cell types/classes," says Thomson. "These computational methods could help us broadly understand drug action in a heterogeneous tissue such as the brain."</p><h3>"Electrode pooling: A method to boost the yield of multi neuron recordings"—<strong>The T&amp;C Chen Brain-Machine Interface Center</strong></h3><p><em><a href="http://www.bbe.caltech.edu/content/markus-meister">Markus Meister</a> (PhD '87), </em><em>Anne P. and Benjamin F. Biaggini Professor of Biological Sciences; Executive Officer for Neurobiology</em></p><p>In order to understand the inner workings of the brain, researchers need to be able to record the electrical signals from neurons. This is typically done by inserting an electrode into the desired region of the brain, where it measures the signals from individual neurons and transmits them to a computer via a thin wire. Meister aims to make this technique more efficient—and thus less invasive—by connecting a single wire to multiple electrodes in a process called electrode pooling.</p><p>"A wire connected to multiple electrodes could record from multiple neurons, reducing the number of wires needed and preventing unnecessary damage to the brain," he says. "Of course, with only one wire, how can we know from which neuron a signal is coming from? To address this, we are working on a clever algorithm to unmix multiple signals on one wire."</p><h3>"A Novel Paradigm to Investigate Human Intention and Agency: A Neuroscience and Philosophy Collaboration"—<strong>The T&amp;C Chen Center for Social and Decision Neuroscience</strong></h3><p><em><a href="https://www.hss.caltech.edu/content/steven-r-quartz">Steven Quartz</a>, professor of philosophy</em></p><p><em><a href="https://www.hss.caltech.edu/content/christopher-r-hitchcock">Christopher Hitchcock</a>, </em><em>J. O. and Juliette Koepfli Professor of Philosophy</em></p><p><em><a href="http://www.bbe.caltech.edu/content/shinsuke-shin-shimojo">Shinsuke Shimojo</a>, Gertrude Baltimore Professor of Experimental Psychology</em></p><p><em>Daw-An Wu, research scientist</em></p><p><em>Uri Maoz, visitor in neuroscience</em></p><p>Decades ago, a scientist named Benjamin Libet ran an experiment that suggested that one can predict, by looking at a person's brain patterns, what that person will do before they report being consciously aware that they are going to do it. A team of neuroscientists and philosophers at Caltech are partnering to explore Libet's argument rigorously by conducting experiments to measure the timing of a person's intentions and awareness.</p><p>"If the decision to move is made unconsciously, and you're only later consciously aware of that decision, this could suggest that voluntary action works differently than we think it does," says Hitchcock. "We've always thought that when we consciously make a decision to do something, that conscious decision then initiates the physical neurological processes. However, some experimental results suggest the opposite! This raises interesting questions about the nature of free will."</p></div></div></div>Mon, 04 Dec 2017 23:56:06 +0000ldajose80556 at http://www.caltech.eduRoots and Brancheshttp://www.caltech.edu/news/roots-and-branches-80337
<div class="field field-name-field-subtitle field-type-text field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Read the Latest Issue of The Caltech Effect</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-images field-type-file field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><div class="ds-1col file file-image file-image-jpeg view-mode-full_grid_9 clearfix ">
<img src="http://s3-us-west-1.amazonaws.com/www-prod-storage.cloud.caltech.edu/styles/article_photo/s3/Screen%20Shot%202017-11-09%20at%202.58.22%20PM.jpg?itok=w2TbZSXe" alt="Artistic image of the campus Englemann Oak" /><div class="field field-name-credit-sane-label field-type-ds field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Credit: Caltech</div></div></div></div></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><p>The latest issue of <a href="https://breakthrough.caltech.edu/magazine/2017-nov"><em>The Caltech Effect</em></a>, the e-magazine of the <em>Break Through</em> campaign, explores the notion of familial ties across many dimensions—generations, labs, even the Milky Way.</p></div></div></div>Thu, 09 Nov 2017 23:08:39 +0000jnalick80337 at http://www.caltech.eduA Mind-Controlled Exoskeletonhttp://www.caltech.edu/news/mind-controlled-exoskeleton-79626
<div class="field field-name-field-subtitle field-type-text field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">A grant from the National Science Foundation will help develop a brain-machine interface for controlling prosthetic legs</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-news-writer field-type-ds field-label-inline clearfix"><div class="field-label">News Writer:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Lori Dajose</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-images field-type-file field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><div class="ds-1col file file-image file-image-jpeg view-mode-full_grid_9 clearfix ">
<img src="http://s3-us-west-1.amazonaws.com/www-prod-storage.cloud.caltech.edu/styles/article_photo/s3/RAndersen-Diagram-NEWS-WEB.jpg?itok=bLh_YvFu" alt="a diagram of a person and a brain" /><div class="field field-name-field-caption field-type-text field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">A schematic of how a brain-machine interface might interact with prosthetic legs.</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-credit-sane-label field-type-ds field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Credit: Courtesy of Payam Heydari</div></div></div></div></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><p><a href="http://www.bbe.caltech.edu/content/richard-andersen">Richard Andersen</a> has received a grant from the National Science Foundation's Frontier program to develop a brain-machine interface that could translate the neural intention to walk into the movement of prosthetic legs. The work is a collaboration between Caltech, the Keck School of Medicine of USC, and the University of California, Irvine (UCI). The principal investigator is professor Payam Heydari, UCI professor of electrical engineering &amp; computer science. The technology is still in its developmental phases, but could one day help paraplegics to walk again.</p><p>"People with spinal cord injuries do not have sensation in their legs, and must look at their feet when using manually controlled prosthetic legs since they do not receive normal sensory feedback," says Andersen, James G. Boswell Professor of Neuroscience, <a href="https://neuroscience.caltech.edu/centers">T&amp;C Chen Brain-Machine Interface Center Leadership Chair</a>, and director of the T&amp;C Chen Brain-Machine Interface Center. "This makes it difficult to use such an exoskeleton. However, the brain-machine interface we are working on will be bidirectional: it allows neurons to control an exoskeleton, and also gives neurons the feedback of sensation in the region of the brain's cortex where the leg is represented. The stimulation-based sensory feedback is the main component of our lab's involvement in the project."</p><p>"The present approach develops a technological solution to paralysis by creating a new path for the brain to interact directly with the external environment," says co-investigator Charles Liu, professor of clinical neurological surgery at the Keck School of Medicine of USC and director of the USC Neurorestoration Center. "This novel approach will synergize with parallel strategies such as neural repair and optimization."</p><p>"The goal of this multidisciplinary project is to create an implantable system that can enable patients with spinal cord injury to walk and regain feeling in their legs by circumventing the damaged portion of the spinal cord," says Heydari.</p><p>Andersen's lab has worked on similar prosthetic sensory feedback using a <a href="http://www.caltech.edu/news/feeling-touch-50756">robotic arm</a>.</p></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-pr-links field-type-link-field field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Related Links:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="http://www.caltech.edu/news/neural-codes-body-movements-79080" class="pr-link">The Neural Codes for Body Movements</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="http://www.caltech.edu/news/conte-center-poised-next-chapter-decision-making-research-79118" class="pr-link">Conte Center Poised for Next Chapter in Decision-Making Research</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="http://www.caltech.edu/news/inside-look-chen-institute-caltech-72194" class="pr-link">Inside Look: the Chen Institute at Caltech</a></div></div></div>Wed, 13 Sep 2017 16:10:13 +0000ldajose79626 at http://www.caltech.eduThe Massively Big Picturehttp://www.caltech.edu/news/massively-big-picture-79520
<div class="field field-name-field-subtitle field-type-text field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Mark Simons is part of a movement to add precise and panoramic perspectives to previously limited geographic observations.</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-images field-type-file field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><div class="ds-1col file file-image file-image-jpeg view-mode-full_grid_9 clearfix ">
<img src="http://s3-us-west-1.amazonaws.com/www-prod-storage.cloud.caltech.edu/styles/article_photo/s3/Story_Header_768x630_Simons.jpg?itok=xXRUrvq2" alt="Mark Simons" /><div class="field field-name-field-caption field-type-text field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Mark Simons</div></div></div></div></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><p>The 2011 Japanese earthquake was a defining moment for Mark Simons. The devastating 9.0-magnitude quake and its subsequent tsunami, which took nearly 16,000 lives, spurred efforts around the globe that will shape how nations predict and prepare for future natural disasters and motivated new approaches to basic earthquake science that are applicable to seismic events large and small.</p><p>Read more on the <em><a href="https://breakthrough.caltech.edu/story/massively-big-picture/">Break Through</a></em> campaign website.</p></div></div></div>Fri, 01 Sep 2017 20:54:29 +0000jnalick79520 at http://www.caltech.eduFriend of Caltech Makes Landmark Gift to Build a Better Worldhttp://www.caltech.edu/news/friend-caltech-makes-landmark-gift-build-better-world-78792
<div class="field field-name-field-images field-type-file field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><div class="ds-1col file file-image file-image-jpeg view-mode-full_grid_9 clearfix ">
<img src="http://s3-us-west-1.amazonaws.com/www-prod-storage.cloud.caltech.edu/styles/article_photo/s3/Davis_Allen-approved2008_web.jpg?itok=bEisk2XS" alt="photo of Lenabelle and Allen Davis" /><div class="field field-name-field-caption field-type-text field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Lenabelle and Allen Davis</div></div></div></div></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><p>"You ought to leave the world better than you found it," engineer Allen Davis was known to say. And he did: Davis, who passed away at age 91 in 2015, left more than $60 million from his estate to Caltech.</p><p>Aiming to advance science and education for the benefit of humankind, Davis (pictured with his wife, Lenabelle) directed his bequest to support endowed chairs for faculty, a top priority in <a href="https://breakthrough.caltech.edu/" id="Content_breakthrough.caltech.edu"><em>Break Through: The Caltech Campaign</em></a>. To date, Caltech has drawn on Davis's gift to create four leadership chairs and one professorial chair.</p><p>To learn more about Allen Davis and the legacy this friend of Caltech has left behind, <a href="https://breakthrough.caltech.edu/friend-of-caltech-gives-to-build-a-better-world/">read about this gift and its impact on the <em>Break Through</em> campaign site</a>.</p></div></div></div>Mon, 26 Jun 2017 19:25:31 +0000rbasu78792 at http://www.caltech.eduBreak Through Prospershttp://www.caltech.edu/news/break-through-prospers-78699
<div class="field field-name-field-images field-type-file field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><div class="ds-1col file file-image file-image-jpeg view-mode-full_grid_9 clearfix ">
<img src="http://s3-us-west-1.amazonaws.com/www-prod-storage.cloud.caltech.edu/styles/article_photo/s3/Launchiversary_Pathireddys.jpg?itok=jkIS9_Bq" alt="photo of Ruthwick and Sathwick Pathireddy" /><div class="field field-name-field-caption field-type-text field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Ruthwick and Sathwick Pathireddy</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-credit-sane-label field-type-ds field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Credit: Caltech</div></div></div></div></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><p><em>Break Through</em>, publicly launched just over a year ago, is already the most successful campaign in Caltech's history. In the first year of the public phase alone, gifts exceeded $400 million. And total contributions—over $1.4 billion—have surpassed the goal of Caltech's last campaign.</p><p>This support comes from new friends as well as those who know Caltech best: its faculty, trustees, students, alumni, staff, and Associates members. More than 10,000 donors have responded generously to the campaign's message that "a few can change the world."</p><p><a href="https://breakthrough.caltech.edu/break-through-prospers/">Go to the <em>Break Through</em> site</a> to see more statistics from the campaign's first anniversary and view a slideshow sampling what people on campus are saying as campaign gifts help Caltech realize core aspirations.</p></div></div></div>Thu, 15 Jun 2017 20:32:47 +0000rbasu78699 at http://www.caltech.eduInside Look: the Chen Institute at Caltechhttp://www.caltech.edu/news/inside-look-chen-institute-caltech-72368
<div class="field field-name-field-subtitle field-type-text field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Caltech magazine highlights a "partnership that will change the world"</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-news-writer field-type-ds field-label-inline clearfix"><div class="field-label">News Writer:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Lori Oliwenstein</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-images field-type-file field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><div class="ds-1col file file-image file-image-jpeg view-mode-full_grid_9 clearfix ">
<img src="http://s3-us-west-1.amazonaws.com/www-prod-storage.cloud.caltech.edu/styles/article_photo/s3/CaltechMAG_Neuroscience-NEWS-WEB.jpg?itok=qlaZeuG2" alt="image" /></div></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><p>Nearly two years ago, philanthropist Tianqiao Chen emailed Caltech biologist Richard Andersen about the work Andersen was doing to help paralyzed patients operate a prosthetic arm using only their thoughts and intentions. "We had just had a big breakthrough that was published in <em>Science</em> and was reported throughout the world," Andersen recalls. "He saw our work on the BBC, and so he came here to meet with me. We talked for an hour and a half, we exchanged ideas. A month later, he came with his wife, Chrissy Luo, and again, we had a tremendous conversation."</p><p id="yui_3_17_2_3_1495470756816_573">That conversation sparked an idea that became a proposal that led to broader conversations and, last December, to a <a href="http://www.caltech.edu/news/caltech-and-tianqiao-and-chrissy-chen-institute-launch-major-neuroscience-initiative-53124">$115 million gift</a> that—as part of <em>Break Through: The Caltech Campaign</em>—created the <a href="http://neuroscience.caltech.edu/">Tianqiao and Chrissy Chen Institute for Neuroscience at Caltech</a>. The Chens' gift dovetailed perfectly with a key Caltech initiative: to apply Caltech's unique interdisciplinary and computational strengths to the study of the brain, with a particular focus on what these approaches can reveal about the brain's biology, chemistry, and even its engineering, as well as about human emotion and behavior.</p><p>Read more in <a href="https://caltechmagazine.squarespace.com/post/minds-on-the-brain"><em>Caltech</em></a> magazine.</p></div></div></div>Mon, 22 May 2017 22:24:16 +0000jnalick72368 at http://www.caltech.eduInside Look: the Chen Institute at Caltechhttp://www.caltech.edu/news/inside-look-chen-institute-caltech-72194
<div class="field field-name-field-subtitle field-type-text field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Caltech magazine highlights a "partnership that will change the world"</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-news-writer field-type-ds field-label-inline clearfix"><div class="field-label">News Writer:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Lori Oliwenstein</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-images field-type-file field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><div class="ds-1col file file-image file-image-jpeg view-mode-full_grid_9 clearfix ">
<img src="http://s3-us-west-1.amazonaws.com/www-prod-storage.cloud.caltech.edu/styles/article_photo/s3/CaltechMag_Neuroscience-SpotlightFeature-1000x300_0.jpg?itok=kPVcRacy" alt="Basal ganglia" /></div></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><p><strong>This article originally appeared in the <a href="https://magazine.caltech.edu/post/minds-on-the-brain">Spring/Summer 2017 issue</a> of <em>Caltech</em> magazine.</strong></p><p> </p><p id="yui_3_17_2_3_1495470756816_616">Nearly two years ago, philanthropist Tianqiao Chen emailed Caltech biologist Richard Andersen about the work Andersen was doing to help paralyzed patients operate a prosthetic arm using only their thoughts and intentions. "We had just had a big breakthrough that was published in <em>Science</em> and was reported throughout the world," Andersen recalls. "He saw our work on the BBC, and so he came here to meet with me. We talked for an hour and a half, we exchanged ideas. A month later, he came with his wife, Chrissy Luo, and again, we had a tremendous conversation."</p><p id="yui_3_17_2_3_1495470756816_573">That conversation sparked an idea that became a proposal that led to broader conversations and, last December, to a <a href="http://www.caltech.edu/news/caltech-and-tianqiao-and-chrissy-chen-institute-launch-major-neuroscience-initiative-53124">$115 million gift</a> that—as part of <em>Break Through: The Caltech Campaign</em>—created the <a href="http://neuroscience.caltech.edu/">Tianqiao and Chrissy Chen Institute for Neuroscience at Caltech</a>. The Chens' gift dovetailed perfectly with a key Caltech initiative: to apply Caltech's unique interdisciplinary and computational strengths to the study of the brain, with a particular focus on what these approaches can reveal about the brain's biology, chemistry, and even its engineering, as well as about human emotion and behavior.</p><p>In announcing the gift, Rosenbaum said, "There are few problems as important as understanding the brain: understanding how people think; understanding how people interact with the world; understanding how we can translate that knowledge into interventions that improve people's lives and improve their ability, both mentally and physically, to operate in society.</p><p>"The Chen Institute for Neuroscience at Caltech will let us do something special because we are now bringing individual talents together to transform the study of the brain.</p><p id="yui_3_17_2_3_1495470756816_626">"Together, the Chens and Caltech have identified this as a major area of investment, and together we will establish a partnership that will change the world."</p><p> </p><p><strong>What Their Charge is</strong></p><p><em><a href="https://davidandersonlab.caltech.edu/davidanderson">David Anderson</a>, the Seymour Benzer Professor of Biology and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator, has been named the inaugural holder of the Tianqiao and Chrissy Chen Leadership Chair and director of the institute. In an interview, Anderson talks about how the new institute would shape neuroscience at Caltech.</em></p><div data-block-type="2" id="block-yui_3_17_2_26_1491254634182_15250" style="clear:none;margin-left:auto;"><div id="yui_3_17_2_3_1495470756816_822"><p id="yui_3_17_2_3_1495470756816_821">The motivation for inquiry into the brain is twofold. One is to satisfy our innate curiosity about how this complex machine works. The other is to try to gain understanding that will help improve human health and welfare in general.</p><p>Advances in our understanding of the brain circuits of emotion, for example, will help us to understand and treat psychiatric disorders. Advances in understanding how we learn and remember will help us to treat learning disabilities and perhaps to improve memory and retention. On the other side of it, understanding how the brain functions as a computing device will help inform our engineering of computers that are inspired by the biology of brain-circuit architecture.</p></div></div><p> </p><div data-block-type="2" id="block-yui_3_17_2_3_1494280536269_30827" style="clear:none;margin-left:auto;"><p>The Chen gift will allow us to encourage exploration into areas that are not yet ready for government funding and, most importantly, that are at the interface between different scientific disciplines, particularly biological sciences and physical and computational sciences.</p><p>Neuroscience, arguably more than any other aspect of biology, is a science that requires intense computation, because understanding the brain is about understanding how billions and billions of neurons function in orchestras to regulate our thoughts and behavior. To do that we need new engineering-based technologies to make measurements, which in turn generates big data. This data requires computational approaches to make sense of it and theory to model it. What Caltech has to offer to a greater extent than most other institutions is the marriage between the biology of the brain and the mathematics of the brain.</p><p>I see my role as institute director as maximizing the engagement of the Caltech community in neuroscience research, particularly in recruiting people who have not previously participated in research into this area. The opportunity that the Chens have provided us with is the chance to change not only the type of problems that we can solve here but the way we approach those problems.</p><p><strong>Go Wider</strong><br data-preserve-html-node="true" /><a href="http://www.caltech.edu/news/prestigious-prize-awarded-caltech-neuroscientist-53686">Neuroscience Prize Awarded to David Anderson</a></p><h1> </h1><p><strong>How They</strong>'<strong>ll Get It Done</strong></p><p><em>The Chen Institute at Caltech involves faculty from </em><em>across Caltech's six academic divisions, creating a campuswide </em><em>interdisciplinary community of neuroscientists, biologists, chemists, physicists, engineers, computer scientists, and social scientists, all with the shared goal of understanding the fundamental principles that underlie brain function. </em><em>It comprises five centers, each with a unique charge and </em><em>each led by a researcher whose work is already shaping the future of neuroscience at Caltech. </em></p><p> </p><p><strong>The T&amp;C Chen Brain-Machine Interface Center</strong></p><p><strong>LED BY <a href="http://www.bbe.caltech.edu/content/richard-andersen">RICHARD ANDERSEN</a>, T&amp;C CHEN BRAIN-MACHINE INTERFACE CENTER LEADERSHIP CHAIR; <br />JAMES G. BOSWELL PROFESSOR OF NEUROSCIENCE</strong></p><p>A brain-machine interface is a method of recording or stimulating the brain and connecting it bi-directionally to a machine. An example of this, in our research, would be decoding the intent of paralyzed subjects, then using that to control a robotic limb or computer.The advance we have made at Caltech is to record from a more cognitive part of the brain so we can, in a fraction of a second, decode the intent of the subject and execute the movement. When the subject thinks, "I want to pick up a glass of water," we can decode that and then with smart robotics achieve very smooth movements. It is both an intuitive and a very smooth operation, so it's been a real advance in the field.</p><div data-block-type="2" id="block-yui_3_17_2_3_1494280536269_34694" style="clear:none;margin-left:auto;"><div id="yui_3_17_2_3_1495470756816_889"><p>It takes my breath away every time I see the subject sitting there in his or her wheelchair being able to, just through their thoughts, control robotic limbs or play a virtual piano or type on a virtual keyboard. It is just an amazing thing, and it thrills the patients as well. It is the first time since their injury that they can actually interact physically with the world around them in tasks that previously required limb movements.</p><p>Through the T&amp;C Chen Brain-Machine Interface Center, we hope to achieve three major goals. One is scientific, discovering how populations of neurons work together to produce these sensations, perceptions, and intentions. The second is clinical, helping paralyzed patients and patients more generally with neurological diseases that affect both perception and movement. The third is advancing neurotechnologies to allow for less invasive or noninvasive recordings of high detail from the human brain. This will be, to my knowledge, the first brain-machine interface center more broadly examining perception, intent, and the capabilities of the human. </p><p>This gift from the Chens will be so central to what we can do. In patient trials, continuity is critical. We need funding stability over a period of years for a complex, large interdisciplinary group that is centered on the patients and also the environment around them. Now, we can be sure that we will have no disruption in the research or in the clinical trials as they progress.</p><p><strong>Go Wider</strong><br data-preserve-html-node="true" /><a href="http://www.caltech.edu/news/controlling-robotic-arm-patients-intentions-46786">Controlling a Robotic Arm with a Patient's Intentions</a><br data-preserve-html-node="true" /><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F4wAvlA_Of0&amp;feature=youtu.be">Next Generation of Neuroprosthetics: Science Explained (video)</a></p><p><strong>Go Deeper</strong></p><p data-preserve-html-node="true"><a href="http://authors.library.caltech.edu/54866/">Decoding Motor Imagery from the Posterior Parietal Cortex of a Tetraplegic Human</a></p><p> </p><p><strong>The T&amp;C Chen Center for Social and Decision Neuroscience</strong></p><p><strong>LED BY <a href="http://www.hss.caltech.edu/content/colin-f-camerer">COLIN CAMERER</a>, T&amp;C CHEN CENTER FOR SOCIAL AND DECISION NEUROSCIENCE LEADERSHIP CHAIR; <br />ROBERT KIRBY PROFESSOR OF BEHAVIORAL ECONOMICS</strong></p></div></div></div><div data-block-type="2" id="block-yui_3_17_2_70_1487870364560_39826" style="clear:none;margin-left:auto;"><div id="yui_3_17_2_3_1495470756816_871"><p id="yui_3_17_2_3_1495470756816_898">We are interested in what's going on in the brain when people are making decisions that mostly affect themselves, and when they are interacting with other people.</p><p id="yui_3_17_2_3_1495470756816_870">We will attack problems such as limited willpower and self-control, particularly in decisions about food, drug addiction, and procrastination. Early evidence indicates that an area called the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, underneath your temple, keeps in mind the distant, bad outcomes from tempting choices in order to exert self-control.</p></div></div><div data-block-type="2" id="block-yui_3_17_2_3_1494280536269_39633" style="clear:none;margin-left:auto;"><div id="yui_3_17_2_3_1495470756816_918"><p>One of the hallmarks of the T&amp;C Chen Center for Social and Decision Neuroscience is that we use many different tools. Working closely with the technicians in the Caltech Brain Imaging Center (the CBIC), we use functional magnetic resonance imaging, or fMRI, to enable us to see bloodflow throughout the brain. We also use EEG, which measures activity near the cortical surface at a rapid time scale (every one millisecond) to see fast and slow thinking. We also study people with damage in certain areas: If a person has a broken amygdala, for example, and they cannot tell whether another person is afraid, we can be sure that the amygdala is a necessary part of a circuit for detecting fear. </p><p>The establishment of this center is an acknowledgment that the study of the neural activity that creates human decisions, based in the Division of the Humanities and Social Sciences, is an important part of neuroscience at Caltech. It also will help us plan long-run studies, five or 10 years, in which we can build up a solid understanding of the brain brick by brick. We can try a dozen new approaches, some of which will be dead ends, knowing that when one approach does work, we have the capacity to pour time and energy into it to see where it takes us. We can turn money into science, knowing we can afford to follow the science wherever it leads us.</p><p><strong>Go Wider</strong><br data-preserve-html-node="true" /><a href="http://www.caltech.edu/news/testosterone-makes-men-less-likely-question-their-impulses-55864">Testosterone Makes Men Less Likely to Question Their Impulses</a><br data-preserve-html-node="true" /><a href="http://www.caltech.edu/news/social-hormone-promotes-cooperation-risky-situations-49759">Social Hormone Promotes Cooperation in Risky Situations</a></p><p data-preserve-html-node="true"><strong>Go Deeper</strong><br data-preserve-html-node="true" /><a href="http://authors.library.caltech.edu/77049/">Single Dose Testosterone Administration Impairs Cognitive Reflection in Men</a><br data-preserve-html-node="true" /><a href="http://authors.library.caltech.edu/64303/">Vasopressin Increases Human Risky Cooperative Behavior</a></p><h1> </h1><p><strong>The T&amp;C Chen Center for Systems Neuroscience</strong></p><p><strong>LED BY <a href="https://neuroscience.caltech.edu/people/tsao">DORIS TSAO</a> (BS '96), T&amp;C CHEN CENTER FOR SYSTEMS NEUROSCIENCE LEADERSHIP CHAIR; <br />PROFESSOR OF BIOLOGY; HOWARD HUGHES MEDICAL INSTITUTE INVESTIGATOR</strong></p></div></div><div data-block-type="2" id="block-yui_3_17_2_4_1489187393975_24765" style="clear:none;margin-left:auto;"><div id="yui_3_17_2_3_1495470756816_929"><p id="yui_3_17_2_3_1495470756816_928">To think, remember, imagine, and see—all these amazing capacities of the brain come from billions of neurons with quadrillions of precise connections interacting to form the most remarkable dynamical system in the universe. Caltech has a strong emphasis on understanding things at a deep, fundamental level, exemplified by the founders Hale, Millikan, and Noyes. Will we ever be able to understand the brain completely, at the level that we now understand the basic laws of physics? That is what this new center seeks to find out. We are at an infant stage in this quest right now: mostly still describing how single neurons respond under different conditions. To move forward, we will need new experimental tools for observing large populations of neurons and new computational approaches for analyzing this data. The new center will help build this infrastructure. </p></div></div><div data-block-type="2" id="block-yui_3_17_2_3_1494280536269_44421" style="clear:none;margin-left:auto;"><div><p>Our lab's approach is unique in two ways. First, we want to understand the complete problem of vision—<br />not just how an object is recognized or how it's localized but how the entire system works, including all the interfaces. Second, we are fearless about combining different techniques. We were one of the first labs in the world to combine fMRI with electrophysiology. That led to a whole new picture of how the part of the brain that's involved in object recognition is organized. </p><p>Systems neuroscience right now is a collection of silos, with researchers studying emotion, or vision, or decision making. This new center will inspire and enable us to work toward the larger goal of understanding how these different systems are talking to each other. How does a sensory percept trigger formation of a memory? How do internal states and sensory inputs interact to generate behavior? How does the brain decide when to route information from one area to another? Is there a general programming language that the software of the brain is written in? How do answers to these questions change across brain evolution?</p><p><strong>Go Wider</strong><br data-preserve-html-node="true" /><a href="http://www.caltech.edu/news/altered-perceptions-54514">Altered Perceptions</a></p><p data-preserve-html-node="true"><strong>Go Deeper</strong><br data-preserve-html-node="true" /><a href="http://authors.library.caltech.edu/73973/">The Effect of Face Patch Microstimulation on Perception of Faces and Objects</a></p><p data-preserve-html-node="true"> </p></div></div><div data-block-type="2" id="block-yui_3_17_2_3_1494280536269_53598" style="clear:none;margin-left:auto;"><div id="yui_3_17_2_3_1495470756816_940"><p id="yui_3_17_2_3_1495470756816_939"><strong>The Center for Molecular and Cellular Neuroscience</strong></p><p><strong>LED BY <a href="https://neuroscience.caltech.edu/people/gradinaru">VIVIANA GRADINARU</a> (BS '05), ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF BIOLOGY AND BIOLOGICAL ENGINEERING; <br />HERITAGE MEDICAL RESEARCH INSTITUTE INVESTIGATOR</strong><br /> </p><p>My group works on understanding neural correlates of behavior. The main problem we are currently working on is understanding how a very powerful therapy, deep-brain stimulation, works. There are difficulties around that, because the brain is a very complex organ. It is highly heterogeneous; it is difficult to map. These are our challenges.</p></div></div><div data-block-type="2" id="block-yui_3_17_2_9_1487980875717_21745" style="clear:none;margin-left:auto;"><div id="yui_3_17_2_3_1495470756816_967"><p>The brain is not only difficult to study but also difficult to access since it is protected by the blood-brain barrier. This keeps pathogens at bay, but it also makes it difficult to deliver therapies to the brain. We are very excited about our latest work, where we've been able to engineer viral vectors to cross the blood-brain barrier and deliver products brain-wide. Those products can take the form of labels for anatomical mapping, but also therapies.</p><p>The Center for Molecular and Cellular Neuroscience will be instrumental in giving us a hub to exchange ideas and amplify these technologies. We are excited about the potential of the teaching lab that's planned through the Chen Institute at Caltech, where students and teachers will work together on technology transfer and enhancement.</p><p>The Chen Institute at Caltech is instrumental in allowing us to understand the brain in all of its complexity, because there is an understanding that the brain is not about the molecules alone, or the cells alone, or behavior alone, but rather it is the interaction across the levels. The Chen Institute at Caltech has centers that address each of these levels and unifies them under one umbrella, with lead investigators working together for an integrated understanding of the brain.</p><p><strong>Go Wider</strong><br data-preserve-html-node="true" /><a href="http://www.caltech.edu/news/mapping-neurons-improve-treatment-parkinsons-50521">Mapping Neurons to Improve the Treatment of Parkinson's</a><br data-preserve-html-node="true" /><a href="http://www.caltech.edu/news/delivering-genes-across-blood-brain-barrier-49679">Delivering Genes Across the Blood-Brain Barrier</a></p><p data-preserve-html-node="true"><strong>Go Deeper</strong><br data-preserve-html-node="true" /><a href="http://authors.library.caltech.edu/66298/" style="text-decoration: underline;">Cholinergic Mesopontine Signals Govern Locomotion and Reward through Dissociable Midbrain Pathways</a><br data-preserve-html-node="true" /><a href="http://authors.library.caltech.edu/64130/">Cre-dependent Selection Yields AAV Variants for Widespread Gene Transfer to the Adult Brain</a></p><div> </div></div></div><div data-block-type="2" id="block-yui_3_17_2_20_1491258276349_45124" style="clear:none;margin-left:auto;"><div id="yui_3_17_2_3_1495470756816_958"><p id="yui_3_17_2_3_1495470756816_978"><strong>The Caltech Brain Imaging Center</strong></p><p id="yui_3_17_2_3_1495470756816_957"><strong>LED BY <a href="http://people.hss.caltech.edu/~jdoherty/John_P._ODoherty.html">JOHN O'DOHERTY</a>, PROFESSOR OF PSYCHOLOGY</strong></p><p>The <a href="https://cbic.caltech.edu/">Caltech Brain Imaging Center</a>, or CBIC, was founded in 2003 through a gift from the <a href="https://www.moore.org/">Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation</a>, and, over the last 13 years or so, we have been providing Caltech faculty, staff, researchers, and students with the research tools to obtain images of the living brain. </p><p>Here in our center, we can take structural pictures of the brain as well as use fMRI, which takes a second-by-second look at how activity in the brain changes in relation to the functions it is implementing. If a particular part of the brain is working more than another part, this causes a change in the amount of oxygenated blood flowing to that part of the brain. We can detect that signal, giving us insight into which portions of the brain are working at particular moments in time.</p><p>My main research question is trying to understand how the brain learns from experience to make good decisions for the future. Knowing this is fundamental to understanding ourselves as humans, and also impacts our comprehension of what happens when things go wrong in our capacity to make decisions.</p></div></div><div data-block-type="2" id="block-yui_3_17_2_9_1494863648353_17667" style="clear:none;margin-left:auto;"><div id="yui_3_17_2_3_1495470756816_754"><p id="yui_3_17_2_3_1495470756816_753">The brain imaging center is a critical component of the overarching Chen Institute for Neuroscience at Caltech, providing facilities to faculty across not only humanities and social sciences but also biology and biological engineering as well as chemistry and chemical engineering. Through the facilities we offer here, we can provide a bridge between different types of research activities taking place across the Chen Institute at Caltech.</p></div></div><p><strong>Go Wider</strong><br data-preserve-html-node="true" /><a href="http://www.caltech.edu/news/risk-taking-behavior-contagious-50379">Is Risk-Taking Behavior Contagious?</a></p><p data-preserve-html-node="true"><strong>Go Deeper</strong><br data-preserve-html-node="true" /><a href="http://www.pnas.org/content/113/14/3755.abstract">Behavioral Contagion During Learning about Another Agent's Risk-preferences Acts on the Neural Representation of Decision-risk</a></p></div></div></div>Mon, 22 May 2017 16:52:19 +0000jnalick72194 at http://www.caltech.eduChallenge Will Drive New Caltech Research in Climate Sciencehttp://www.caltech.edu/news/challenge-will-drive-new-caltech-research-climate-science-54749
<div class="field field-name-field-subtitle field-type-text field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Trustee Ronald Linde (MS ’62, PhD ’64) and his wife, Maxine, have initiated a giving challenge to support key research</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-news-writer field-type-ds field-label-inline clearfix"><div class="field-label">News Writer:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Marisa Demers</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-images field-type-file field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><div class="ds-1col file file-image file-image-jpeg view-mode-full_grid_9 clearfix ">
<img src="http://s3-us-west-1.amazonaws.com/www-prod-storage.cloud.caltech.edu/styles/article_photo/s3/LindeChallenge_Lindes-and-Instrument-1200x750.jpg?itok=pFJgaPPi" alt="Ronald (MS ’62, PhD ’64) and Maxine Linde; methane and ethane above Caltech&amp;#039;s campus are measured with a repurposed coelostat." /><div class="field field-name-field-caption field-type-text field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Ronald (MS ’62, PhD ’64) and Maxine Linde; methane and ethane above Caltech&#039;s campus are measured with a repurposed coelostat.</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-credit-sane-label field-type-ds field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Credit: Caltech</div></div></div></div></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><p>Responding to the uncertain state of funding for environmental research and the opportunities afforded by new advances in technology, trustee Ronald Linde (MS '62, PhD '64) and his wife, Maxine, have initiated a giving challenge to help ensure that Caltech can maintain current programs and move forward with important new work in climate science. When complete, the <a href="https://breakthrough.caltech.edu/ronald-maxine-linde-challenge-climate-science/">Ronald and Maxine Linde Challenge for Climate Science</a> will generate at least $3 million to scientists and engineers across the Caltech campus who are seeking to better understand Earth's changing climate. </p><p><a href="https://breakthrough.caltech.edu/challenge-will-drive-new-caltech-research-in-climate-science">Read more on the <em>Break Through </em>campaign website</a>.</p></div></div></div>Mon, 17 Apr 2017 20:09:39 +0000jnalick54749 at http://www.caltech.eduCaltech Students and Alumni Receive 2017 NSF Graduate Research Fellowshipshttp://www.caltech.edu/news/caltech-students-and-alumni-receive-2017-nsf-graduate-research-fellowships-54576
<div class="field field-name-field-subtitle field-type-text field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Twenty current students and eight alumni have been selected to receive funding for graduate studies.</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-news-writer field-type-ds field-label-inline clearfix"><div class="field-label">News Writer:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Lori Dajose</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-images field-type-file field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><div class="ds-1col file file-image file-image-gif view-mode-full_grid_9 clearfix ">
<img src="http://s3-us-west-1.amazonaws.com/www-prod-storage.cloud.caltech.edu/styles/article_photo/s3/NSF-GradFellowships-NEWS-WEB.gif?itok=b42_CICB" alt="The logo of the National Science Foundation." /></div></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><p>This year, the National Science Foundation (NSF) has selected 20 current Caltech students and eight alumni to receive its Graduate Research Fellowships. The awards support three years of graduate study within a five-year fellowship period in research-based master's or doctoral programs in science or engineering.</p><p>The NSF notes that the Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP) "is a critical program in NSF's overall strategy to develop the globally-engaged workforce necessary to ensure the nation's leadership in advancing science and engineering research and innovation." The selection criteria used to identify NSF fellows reflect the potential of the applicant to advance knowledge and benefit society.</p><p>Caltech's awardees for 2017 are seniors Alexander Anferov, Daniil Lukin, Stephanie Moon, Anjali Premkumar, Gerri Roberts, and Sasha Zemsky; and graduate students Mary Arrastia, Stephanie Breunig, Ivanna Escala, Riley Galton, Phillip Helms, Kari Hernandez, Celeste Labedz, Ethan Pickering, William Poole, Alexander Sorum, Alvita Tran, Krystal Vasquez, Zachary Wu, and Lealia Xiong. The graduate student awardees join 135 current NSF fellows enrolled at Caltech.</p><p>Caltech alumni in the 2017 class of Graduate Fellows are: Oliver Chen, Linda Chio, Anne Davis, Connie Hsueh, Anna Liu, Aleena Patel, Madeleine Youngs, and Leonardo Zornberg.</p><p>In total this year, the NSF selected 2,000 GRFP recipients from a pool of more than 13,000 applicants. Caltech's Fellowships Advising and Study Abroad office works with current students and recent Caltech graduates interested in applying for an NSF fellowship; sponsoring a panel discussion of previous winners each fall and offering one-on-one advising.</p></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-pr-links field-type-link-field field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Related Links:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="http://www.caltech.edu/news/director-national-science-foundation-visits-caltech-53289" class="pr-link">Director of National Science Foundation Visits Caltech</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="http://www.caltech.edu/news/nsf-brain-funding-awarded-caltech-neuroscientist-47517" class="pr-link">NSF BRAIN Funding Awarded to Caltech Neuroscientist</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="http://www.caltech.edu/news/nsf-supports-caltech-led-global-project-study-cosmic-flashes-48011" class="pr-link">NSF Supports Caltech-Led Global Project to Study Cosmic Flashes</a></div></div></div>Fri, 31 Mar 2017 20:51:59 +0000ldajose54576 at http://www.caltech.edu